Esperance
by Saerzion
Summary: The Inquisitor walks the world in darkness, but to those at her side, she is a beacon of light. Cole, above all, sees her the brightest, and through quiet moments of spoken color, a bond is forged in silver and gold.


_Aching, stifling, it presses on my chest with a weight more painful than any physical force. I hear their voices in my head, the screams and shouts so clear, as if I had been there. Half of Wycome burns, the blood of my kinsmen staining the streets, and a continent away, I feel it all on my hands._

Cole worked through the bombardment of agonized thoughts, blinking, sensing too much at once as he remained perched atop the edge of the balcony railing. The wind blew against the wide brim of his hat as he watched her sitting at the edge of her bed, sheets tossed aside, her head in her hands. Moonlight streamed in through the vast windows, bathing her dispirited form in a pearlescent hue.

_How many wrong calls have I made? How many more will I make? Will I even survive the Game at Halamshiral? Somehow, I'll have to. The Inquisition still looks to me to lead them. Why did I accept the role? I'm hardly fit for this. Inside, I'm a quivering child again. Scared. Unconfident. As blind in my wisdom as I am in my eyes._

He waited, feeling it all in the air, daunted and uncertain. Guilt, he identified. The other thing, he fumbled to grasp. Burning, a fire grazing metal, a spear aimed at oneself. It pierced the heart, wrenching and twisting, venom pouring inside to leave a gaping wound. He struggled to comprehend it, the picture of her emotions. A maelstrom winded through, but eventually he saw it.

She hated herself?

Breaking the stillness, he crept forward across the balcony, his quiet steps blending into the soundless night. Undertones began in the distance and drifted closer to vie for his attention, but he willed them away as he stopped at the entrance. The priority sat there across the quarters, carrying the world on her shoulders, a vision of fragile ivory and gold. Beneath the skin and hair, she was a taut string, pulled tighter with every task heaved on her, the threads fraying. He wanted to help, _needed_ to help, but all attempts to repair the tangle carried the risk of snapping the strands.

"Cole," she called out, her strong voice cutting through the silence, a thunderclap on the clouds. "What is it?"

He marveled at her detection. She, who walked in darkness and possessed no magical ability to compensate, navigated her surroundings with uncanny fluency. One broken sense, but four picked up the slack. Likely, a sixth lurked in the background. How else could she have led them this far?

"I could hear your hurt from the tavern," he answered her, coming forward, feet padding on the cold floor as he materialized in full. "I'm here to—"

"Help," she finished, the word on a sigh. The rustle of fabric followed, and she stood, face still lowered behind a long blonde curtain, tunic and trousers askew. "Although I appreciate the intention, I'll be all right."

"_I'll be all right."_ Empty words when people said them, white lies to keep others at a distance. For reasons far above his understanding, they preferred to wallow in the void, a self-destructive cycle that gnawed pieces of them away. Consumed by pain, and yet they lingered.

However, with Lavellan—

"Wait," he said in surprise, starting when the storm dissipated. He searched and searched, but the gaping wound had sutured, the fire and spear having faded to nothing. "They're… gone?"

"No," she replied as practiced fingers straightened her attire. Jaded, tired, but she always interacted when he came to her. "They're still there, just locked away."

"But how?"

She turned to him then, brushing her hair aside, glassy pale eyes mirrors of the moon. "Compartmentalization. It's a skill not many possess, but one I had to master."

Cole edged closer, studying her pallid visage, seeing the lines of experience adding years to her otherwise youthful features. "Won't they come back?"

"They will. I'll deal with those negative emotions the old-fashioned way, eventually. But that will take time, and right now there are more pressing matters."

"Why won't you let me just take them away?" he asked, curious, looking hard at the puzzle. "I hear you more than the others, across the distance, like a repeating dirge. Doesn't it all get heavy?"

Lavellan's pointed ears twitched, an unchecked mannerism. "Yes. But that's responsibility. I'd rather work through my mistakes and fears because I'd like to think I'm a strong enough person to keep myself afloat." She strode past him, gait confident in a memorized route to the balcony. "Whatever insecurities you heard are separated and sectioned off when I'm working as the Inquisitor. Don't worry."

Dismissal, cool and collected, yet the gentle timbre left the conversation open. Sure enough, he heard the new sequence, no longer a weeping squall, but whispers in the tide.

_My strength is my cunning, an arrow in the dark. They chose me for a reason, and I know I have something others do not. The Anchor aside, I am worthy of their allegiance. My sight is missing, but I'm their banner, their leader. Although I stumble, I've committed. Merely look past the flaws. There lies something great._

He hesitated, thinking, processing, wondering if even Solas knew of the dual sides to her mentality. Able to switch between them like masks on a whim. She leaned now over the balcony railing, elbows resting on the stone, angled toward the dark landscape. He dawdled for a moment longer before joining her in the night air.

"You're hard," he stated, sitting on the railing next to her and rocking on his haunches.

"I've been told worse," she responded, lilting, laughing. "My clan called me impossible. An accurate description, given how I was one of the top hunters."

Cole noted the sadness still sealed off, no trace of it even as she mentioned her late kinsmen. Only memories of better days, and he concluded that was better. "I want to ask. If I sense you hurting again, do you not want me to come?"

Two, three, four times previous he had heard the call, but now, when heeding it, he found himself unnecessary.

She paused at that, lithe frame going still as she pondered. "I'll decline help for it, but you're always welcome to come see me."

He stopped rocking and peered at her from beneath his hat, somehow warmer and lighter, a drifting ember. "Oh. I'm glad."

Minutes passed in comfortable silence, familiar and serene. The whistling breath of the mountains blustered through the snowy crags below. He liked these moments, the pleasant lull of her company, just the two of them. In front of the rest, she seemed more distant, unreachable, a shimmering beacon on a pedestal. But here, she was just Lavellan, the mantle of the Inquisitor hanging on a coat rack. Did the Inquisitor wear coats?

He caught her shivering, but only her body protested the cold; her mind roved elsewhere.

"We head to Halamshiral tomorrow. Are you ready?" she inquired, the locked box of her fears cracking ever so slightly before she slammed it shut again.

Cole tilted his head. "'We'? I'm coming, too?"

"That place is a compost heap of deceit and Orlesian politics. I need you there with me."

_Eyes. To be her eyes._ "All right. I'll go."

"Good. Thank you. If anything, you can enjoy the sights for me," she remarked, and then muttered, "Even though they're all just a disguise for the utter nugshit that is the Game."

He contemplated that, fidgeting, restlessness weaving through his midsection. "Lady Montilyet said it will be very colorful there. I… like colors, but not too much at once. I might find somewhere else to stand. I can focus better if I'm apart from it." _Clashing colors, too showy, too noisy. They will only get in the way._

She nodded, considerate and kind. "I'll come find you when I need you." Then, a switching of gears. "Too many colors, you say? I wish I knew them."

Wistful, somber, a long-held desire. She had lived and thrived beyond her limitations, excelled in things she shouldn't have been able to. Hard work and perseverance paved many roads, but no matter her success, small things like this still left an ache.

Cole watched the way her lashes lowered. "No one has ever described them to you?"

"How do you describe color to someone who has never seen it? Others have tried, but the connections never came together."

He stared straight ahead, mind speeding, reaching for a translatable descriptor, something to start with. "I… suppose there's green—the grass, the trees, nature. When you smell the earth, that's green. When you hold the stem of a flower, that's green. But it's also envy, sometimes sickness, and did you know? It's the mark on your hand."

Lavellan's lips parted as she curled the afflicted hand into a fist. "An undesirable color, then."

_She's unhappy. No. That's wrong. I'm supposed to make it better._

"Orange is the sunrise, the sunset, linked with yellow. Heat and courage. When you're warm, you can feel it. When you're brave, you… _are_ it."

Babbling, nonsense to his own ears, but she listened, made sense of it, and he wondered if maybe he could help after all.

"Purple is regal, fancy, more so when violet. When lightened to lavender, it's softer and soothing. I like looking at it, but it doesn't fit me."

"Really? Lavender sounds like you."

He shook his head to himself. "No. I'm—" _Clear, transparent, fleeting, a ghost to see through. No spectrum of color would claim me, even in this borrowed form._ "…I'm not lavender."

A few beats passed before he spoke again.

"Another is red. Fierce, passionate, it can be love or hatred. The line is thin, but many favor it." He glanced at her. "Maybe you and Solas know it."

She tensed a little, but her tone remained even. "I think red is one I might know, yes."

Cole read into the careful inflection, recognizing a thick veil, but knew too little on matters of the heart to pry. A rough current came through, a disturbance to the setting. He hurried to continue before the moment shattered.

"There's blue, sad, but also cool, sometimes refreshing. It's a clear sky, a body of water," he said, unable to look away from her as she fully faced him. "The color of your eyes."

They gazed at him, through him, into him, clouded but beautiful, seeing nothing but everything. "Is blue what you would use for me?"

He considered, but she gleamed too much; blue would not suffice. "No. You're gold."

"Gold?"

"Shining brighter than any other, a rival to the sun, hard and higher, untarnished, precious," he declared, now strangely self-conscious with his words. "Paired with silver, the lesser, but a partner to complement. Both etched in the stars, glimmering, and sometimes entwined."

Her expression shifted, became unreadable, and he thought for a second to try again.

But then—

"You're silver. I see you as silver, Cole."

He regarded her in confusion, witnessing the soft smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. "But… you don't actually know what silver looks like."

She lifted a hand and pressed it against his cheek, fingertips grazing the flesh to memorize the structure. He jolted at the action, but fought the urge to flee when the warmth from her palm spread out over his skin. Sweet and tender, a gesture of unspoken things, encircling forever, round and round, dizzying. He needn't respire, yet it rendered him breathless. A ghost bested by light. Her touch left him reeling, a spiral of wonder, but her words gave him a reason to breathe.

"I know what it feels like."

x-x-x-x-x

**A/N:** I'm not even sure what this is, exactly. I'd been aiming for some sort of coherent story, but then this happened. It was a challenge to write, I'll say that. Cole's thinking process and sensory input are abstract, and writing in his perspective—even in third person—required a lot of concentration. All occurrences of improper grammar (and prose so purple it shits unicorns) are done on purpose, not only to fit the tone, but also because I think I've lost my mind at this point. But hey, thanks for reading!


End file.
